Skoobe is German-based, but its free app allows users abroad to sample hundreds of books.

As part of the generation that won't get on the property ladder till our parents die, I'm often urged to adopt a more Germanic attitude towards home ownership ("But in Berlin, everyone rents!"). Perhaps it makes sense, then, that the Germans are also more enlightened when it comes to renting ebooks. Munich-based startup Skoobe (read it backwards) charges users €9.99 a month to borrow up to two titles for 30 days. You need to have an iPad or iPhone to use it, as well as a good command of German. It has two big selling points: its wide range of recently published ebooks and its beautiful, user-friendly design, spookily reminiscent of Spotify.

Though Skoobe has no immediate plans to expand out of Germany, it's a useful indicator of where the UK could be heading. If you've got a Kindle, you can already borrow backlisted titles from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, "free" with a subscription to Amazon Prime. Later this year, two homegrown ebook lenders will launch: Bilbary, which plans to charge 20% of a book's retail price for a 30-day loan, and Afictionado, another subscription service, offering fortnightly rentals.

Will e-lenders force us to rethink our philosophy of ownership? Unless the US Justice Department succeeds in its attempt to end ebook price-fixing, quite possibly. Publishers justify charging nearly as much for an ebook as a hardback by pointing to the negligible difference in production and distribution costs. But to many, the idea of forking out more than a fiver for something you'll probably only read once, that you can't give as a present, or show off on your bookshelf, and which could be deleted by Amazon on a whim (as Kindle owners who downloaded Animal Farmfound out in 2009), is baffling. E-lending could be a neat compromise. Readers get their hands on new books for a fraction of the retail price and publishers and writers benefit because borrowing makes people read more. And if readers enjoy their digital book, they could be tempted to buy the real thing.